Author’s website with photos ….
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Guardian review -- Also, his dependence on burglary for his basic needs limited his appeal as inspirational role model. True, the idea of a 20-year-old turning his back on the world so decisively has something compelling about it. But aside from that romantically reckless initiating gesture, what does Knight’s story really have to offer?
And check out video
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In a search for more motive and meaning than the hermit will provide, Finkel chats with psychologists who never met Knight, a seeming violation of psychiatry’s Goldwater Rule against diagnosing people from afar. There are also honkingly dull digressions into the spiritual meaning of becoming a hermit (“In Hindu philosophy, everyone ideally matures into a hermit”), some pseudoscience about solitude and brain function, and an unfortunate comparison with prisoners in solitary confinement, who hardly have the luxury of choosing their solitude.
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I was drawn through these pages in a single sitting – their pull is true and magnetic. By the unsettling conclusion, both hermit and author have wept at the impossibility of the situation: the longing to commune with an unknowable force outside of the rude crowd, the need to connect with something beyond our daily handshakes and trips to the mall. "He was like a refugee from the human race," writes Finkel.
At last, the author must confront a certain treachery he's committed by telling the hermit's story. "He wasn't going to leave behind a single recorded thought, not a photo, not an idea. No person would know of his experience." And yet, now, many will. The beautiful project, in being handled, being known, is tarnished. The book is nonetheless an arresting and poignant examination of such contradictions – the way we each volley, through our lives, between sharing and withholding, between companionship and solitude. It's a haunting story, one that readers won't easily shake. And despite the extraordinary nature of Knight's experience, his tale becomes universal thanks to the expert care of Finkel's writing; the story of a hermit who lived 27 years in a private, forested universe becomes a totem for the rich interior lives that we all, secretly, maintain.
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Dismantling camp
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Restitution
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Hermit in the garden
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Resources and reflections on hermits …
See FAQ section
What is a hermit?
A hermit is a person who lives apart from society. Traditionally, this has meant living alone and self-sufficiently, but not always. The word "hermit" is derived from the Greek eremia for "desert," in reference to the Desert Fathers of the fourth century; and eremos came to mean solitary. The Latin equivalent is solitarius. The term recluse is often taken as a synonym but it has a more behavioral sense to it, while the term "hermit" often retains its deliberate, even spiritual sense. For example, the famed eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica defined "hermit" as "a solitary, one who withdraws from all intercourse with other human beings in order to live a life of religious contemplation." However, the American Heritage Dictionary defines "hermit" as "a person who has withdrawn from society and lives a solitary existence; a recluse."
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Songs written about the North Pond Hermit
